by Dave Delgado
Guam - Team Guam will be sending 6 athletes to compete in Judo at the Pacific Games in New Caledonia. Head coach Rick Blas Jr. says that the team is young but ready to compete against the best in the region. 4 of the competitors are juniors; Gen Imai and head coach Rick Jr. are the only two senior competitors that will be representing Team Guam.
Blas told KUAM Sports, "We are sending a predominately junior team. It's the first time ever that we are doing this. We have seniors mixed in but the Judo Team has usually only taken more advanced athletes but we have been investing a lot of time and a lot of work into our juniors so we are hoping that they do great. We have the World Championships coming up. We have Gen Imai and Kaiulani Cruz, she is also the female athlete playing in the 57-Kilogram Division and Gen Imai is the male athlete playing in the minus 60-Kilogram Division. They will be competing in Paris and we leave August 18th for the World Championships."
With some of the Judo players heading out to get in some international competition under their belts in preparation to the games, the younger athletes here at home already have their mind set at competing at the next level.
Team members Vanrick Castro added, "We have been working really hard preparing for this tournament and what inspires me the most is just the challenge. It's overwhelming at times but it's what drives me to keep going with what I do everyday."
"It's been going good and what I expect out of this tournament is some good results," added Jerome Advincula. "I've been training for this tournament for several months already and I'm not going to stop. I'm going to see where this takes me and see what other tournament are out there."
A lot of work has been put in getting ready for the competition and chance to be on the national team. For veteran fighter Imai, this is his shot at bringing home some hardware and leading the young team alongside her training partner and coach. "We train almost every night, every morning we do weights and sprinting and running. In the evenings we do our technical training, which we do more of the Judo specific strategies and techniques. I've been training a lot with the rest of the team and I feel pretty good going into the Paris World Championships and right after that we fly out to the Pacific Games," she said.
